Customer Reviews

Red HatŪ Certified Technician & Engineer (RHCT and RHCE) Training Guide and Administrator's Reference

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book to complement the Jang text in preparation for the RHCE. Strictly as a study guide for the RHCE, I would have some concerns. It is somewhat light on explaining theories and concepts before jumping into examples and steps to complete RHCT/RHCE tasks. In addition, there are a few areas (i.e., setting up an LDAP client) where the task includes some unnecessary steps. I got the impression that these extra steps were probably good practice or driven by internal policy, but I rather thought that should have been explained.

As far as an administrator's reference, I think the text does a really good job. It gives many useful examples, and covers a great deal of ground that is not included by the RHCT/RHCE exams, but is really important if you will actually be administering RedHat boxes.

I could not recommend this as the only source for study for the exams, but it is a great complement to the Jang text, providing additional examples and a slightly different take on how to accomplish some tasks. Ultimately, I'm glad I bought it, and will keep it around as a reference.

Well, it's a new book on the topic.
I found it to be a lot more concise than Jang's. It actually gives you a lot more information than Jang's book (in terms of commands you need to be familiar with, examples and explaining basic principles), it just does so in approximately same number of pages.

Troubleshooting and exercise section are located at the end of the book and offer scenarios that one could really expect during the exam. There are few minor errors though (commands for creating sw RAID, for example), but it's something you can check on various other resources.

I put this book on #1 place for RHCE preparation. Complemented with Jang's book and official RedHat's "RHEL Deployment guide", there's nothing else you need in terms of textbooks to prepare for the exam.

Very recommended, high quality material. Good reference for everyday sysadmin work.

I am very satisfied with this purchase. This book is great for RHCE preparation as well as for reference.
Content is very neatly organized into 30 chapters (no repetition of same content as most of books do) last chapter is dedicated for troubleshooting.

You won't feel bored while reading this book; concepts are explained with diagrams wherever necessary. All configurations are well explained in steps with appropriate example that makes it easy to remember & implement practically. The most unique feature of this book is easy browsing throughout the content, as the author dedicated a separate chapter to key configurations like mail server, DNS, NFS, Samba, SCP etc.

If you are looking for a RHEL book for RHCE/RHCT self-preparation as well as a good reference must give it a try.

I'm an experienced UNIX administrator (20 years) and have taught UNIX to entry level administrators, have written lesson plans and have mentored mid level admins. I got this book to help prepare for a RH certification. With a background in UNIX already, I figured I could pick up what I need very quickly. The book was rated high on Amazon's list, but honestly I don't know why. The table of contents looks to be exactly what is needed, and is what appealed to me. And there is some good content, but you have to be able to fill in a lot of blanks missing and figure the rest on your own. It's not a book for beginners, although the first few chapters lead you to believe it is. The reason why is that advanced topics or utilities are used without explaination when covering other topics. For example, when installing RHEL, "if you want to make this a DNS server, DHCP, or other network device, then choose the appropriate options" but there's no mention of why you would or would not want to use them.

Some very basic English fundamentals are missing. New words like "Configurator" are introduced and used liberally. It sounds like George Bush! I don't "configurate" software, I configure it. The proper term is "Configuration Utility or Tool or GUI", but not "configurator". Also, in referring to issuing commands, the language is "do an ls/cat and see the results". Also poor English. It looks like some very basic editing mistakes were made. There is another section discussing how to run the X graphical utilities. He gives commands on setting it manually, and then says, "or you can run the admin utility", then takes the next few pages to explain the utility, but never says how to bring up the utility!

I'm only about 1/3 through the book, but as I read, seeing past errors which should have easily been caught by editors are making it difficult. Its about $40, but I believe there's got to be another book out there worth the $40. I'm going to continue to use it (I can't afford another book), but I'm disappointed with it for sure.

I work with Linux every day in the workplace and am in the process of studying for the RHCT exam. A class was offered in-house on RHEL and I enrolled. As part of the class, we all received a copy of this book. I have only one complaint with the book, but otherwise I am very pleased with it.

This is not a comprehensive does-it-all book that will teach everything there is to know - it is a study guide designed to help the reader prepare for the RHCT and RHCE exams, and it is also a reference guide. In these roles, it is very sufficient. Material is laid out in a very clear and straighforward manner, accessible to most readers needing to gain quick knowledge. It does skimp on some details here and there and there are some holes in the knowledge base, but I think most users will be very pleased with this manual. The important thing to remember here is that it is very detailed, not comprehensive.

I appreciate the basic flow between chapters, which seem to be geared to a generalized intro to Linux much like most programming books teach various topics in a logical order for mastery. While this works great for teaching for general knowledge, it is not an optimal flow for the exams. Using the Jang book as a guide, which places the material covered for the RHCT in the first 8 chapters, this book jumps about a bit and makes separation of the two exam targets a lot more difficult. Keep this in mind if you are pursuing the RHCT.

My biggest complaint with this book is the frequent errors in grammar and verb tense. The editing on this book could have been tighter.

As a reference and study guide, this is a very good resource and will serve the reader well. It is not perfect but is a fine choice for those gearing up for the RHCE in particular and makes a superb reference manual.

I wanted a RHCT book and wanted something that wasn't more than 5 years old. Tempted to buy the Mike Jang book but it was a few years older than what I was looking for.This book was a good buy. The author explains concepts in a manner that is easy to understand and follow. I didn't know much about scripting before but with the help of this book I learned how to create small scripts. The author also does a good job of keeping your interest. The only thing I didn't care for was the way he would talk about one subject and reference another chapter in parts of the book. I guess he did that to keep you on track and if you wanted to look more into detail then you could go to that chapter to take a deeper look? Either way good book for the price.

I've worked with Linux since 1994 and I've already seen a lot of books about Linux and some focused in
RHCE test. All of them are good books, but are very superficial stuff.

This book from Asghar Ghori is a very complete book directed to any people who need learn Linux, Red Hat Linux
in particular, and was so well written.Ghori knows exactly how hard is doing the RHCE test and he created a detailed book.

There are 31 chapter inside the book and all of them are enough to pass the exam. I'm right that even someone knows
very well Linux could learn a little with this material. Pay attention in the last chapter: the author show some
troubleshooting problems the you could see in the exam.

Follow the chapters:

1) Overview
2) Files and Directories
3) File and Directory Permissions
4) Text Editors and Processors
5) The Shells
6) Basic Shell Scripting
7) System Processes
8) System Administration and Hardware
9) Installation
10) X Window System and Desktop Managers
11) Software Package Management
12) Users and Groups
13) Disk Partitioning
14) File Systems and Swap
15) Shutdown and Reboot
16) Linux Kernel
17) Backup, Restore and Compression
18) Print Services
19) Job Scheduling and System Logging
20) Basic Networking
21) Network Interface Administration and Routing
22) DNS and DHCP
23) NIS and LDAP
24) Internet Services and Electronic Mail
25) Network Time Protocol
26) NFS and AutoFS
27) Samba
28) Network Installation
29) Web and Caching Proxy Servers
30) System and Network Security
31) System, Network and Security Troubleshooting

I hope I've helped. Good luck for all in the RHCE test.

Alexandre Borges
(Sun Microsystems Instructor, Symantec Instructor, Linux Magazine Brazil columnist and writer)

This is a great book and a must for the RHCE. Please note at the time of writing there are only 3 guides to the RHCE, I have only looked at this and Jang's and if anyone thinks that by reading 1 book they will pass... get real..

This book complements Jangs in that it goes deeper on the LVM partitioning and usage. There are occasional tools that are pointed to in this book that I cannot find elsewhere and my general Linux-fu has increased from reading this.

The biggest positive is the comprehensive additude to tackling the RHCE material. I have not taken the tests yet, but this is the most indepth book I have found so far.

The biggest negative is the layout/structure. While each topic is covered, it is not linked back to the exams enough and there should be practice questions reinforcing this book. A split of RHCE and RHCSA topics would be ideal here.

Essentially there are only 3 guides at the moment. This is one of them and one that you need to have. More then that it is a good read and will expand your linux knowledge. If you are going to analyse a book and bag it for minor spelling mistakes, get a life. If you want the RCHE, get this book :) (yes no RHCSA or RHCE at this stage 2/3 way through, I will update this review with my progress).

I haven't purchased this book to get any certification, but as a supplement in my occasion interactions with RH-based distributions.

I can tell it's well organized and can be read from the beginning through end, but for me the most value of it is in reading some specific topic, which my problem is about. All material has good context and can be digested easily.

This book requires intermediate level of experience in linux-based distributions to be effective as a reference.

I am proud to own this book, this book has good stuff you need to become an RHCE. But RHCE is a very hard exam, you need many other resources to to study and work on. I have installed 2 RHEL 5/6 on a virtual box and practice it according to the book and it went fantastic. One short coming is though there are some typo's.